


End of the Line, Last of the Fuse

by OceanSpray5



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Chronokinesis, Family Dynamics, Five causes the S3 Apocalypse, Five's PTSD finally comes to a head, Gen, Inverted Dynamic, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves Friendship, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Gets A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Parallels to S2E9 with Vanya and Ben, Season 3 Speculation, The Sparrow Academy (Umbrella Academy), Vanya and Five are two sides of the same coin, Vanya stops him, sibling relationships, suicidal thoughts mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28874061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanSpray5/pseuds/OceanSpray5
Summary: Ben…Vanya swallowed hard. She missed her brother. The Sparrow that walked around with his face wasn't him. He housed the same horrors and he spoke with the same voice, but his eyes were steely and his tone cut like glass. Nothing like the soothing tone her Ben had employed when talking her down from the LSD induced panic… when asking for a hug before he'd disappeared.Ben would know what to do. Vanya wished he were here to avert another apocalypse because right now, in the middle of all the chaos, stood Vanya's favorite brother: His eyes glowed a sinister blue just like the power that surged from his fingers affecting the world around them. His uniform, bearing the Sparrow's crest rather than its usual Umbrella, was bloodied in different places. (Vanya noticed with resounding horror that the blood was still dripping as the uniform's deep red turned almost black).He was out of control.Or, after spending so long attempting to stop the apocalypse, Five is the one who causes it.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 14
Kudos: 121





	End of the Line, Last of the Fuse

**Author's Note:**

> So I made a post on tumblr a week ago about how we all want Five to join the Sparrows and have a breakdown but also since the show's theme is the apocalypse, how interesting it would be if Five became the one to cause it because he's also becoming a bomb that is ready to go off.
> 
> [Tumblr Post](https://oceanspray5.tumblr.com/post/640570656761790464/we-all-love-the-idea-of-five-becoming-a-sparrow)
> 
> There are many parallels between Five and Vanya and 4,5,6,7 are my favorite sibling dynamics in the show and I really love Five and Vanya's dynamic especially since they are two sides of the same coin almost. I took this fic as an opportunity to explore that as well as Five's breaking point.
> 
> Time and Space manipulation is a scary thing and as we found in S2, Five can literally turn back time and manipulate it, not just travel through it. 
> 
> I wrote a first version but then it disappeared cuz word crashed and I had to rewrite the majority of it so I hope this version turned out alright.

Vanya was having an out of body experience. Not literally, but she'd had two of those already and was getting quite good at recognizing what they looked like. They weren't the most pleasant to experience. This was almost the same thing but this time it was like she was watching herself through someone else's eyes. 

It was stupid to hope that just because they were back in 2019 (and not even their own fucking timeline) they had left the apocalypse behind. Vanya had caused two different ones already. Never let it be said that she was a well-adjusted individual. (None of the Hargreeves were). Her family had destroyed one timeline and stopped her in another. Vanya didn't realize how terrifying it actually was to be on the outside of the situation. She had always been the bomb before. But witnessing the bomb, go off? The only one who had been able to stop her the last time was Ben, and he had already been dead so the reality had never hit her as hard as the others.

_Ben…_

Vanya swallowed hard. She missed her brother. The Sparrow that walked around with his face wasn't him. He housed the same horrors and he spoke with the same voice, but his eyes were steely and his tone cut like glass. Nothing like the soothing tone her Ben had employed when talking her down from the LSD induced panic… when asking for a hug before he'd disappeared. 

Ben would know what to do. Vanya wished he were here to avert another apocalypse because right now, in the middle of all the chaos, stood Vanya's favorite brother: His eyes glowed a sinister blue just like the power that surged from his fingers affecting the world around them. His uniform, bearing the Sparrow's crest rather than its usual Umbrella, was bloodied in different places. (Vanya noticed with resounding horror that the blood was still dripping as the uniform's deep red turned almost black). 

He was out of control. 

Buildings crumbled as time wore away foundations and debris flew suctioned from the magnetic charge that flowed due to the heavily distorted space surrounding them. 

Vanya ducked as a piece of debris flew through the air towards her. She fell to the ground and when she clutched at the grass beneath her it had turned a husky brown within seconds. Beneath her fingers it crumbled to dust and mixed with the soil underneath it. Trees and shrubs on the nearby horizon had started to rot and crumble in the same way the grass had. Vanya watched in horror as the little critters in them writhed, collapsed, then died. Birds attempting to take flight fell to the ground and moved no more quickly joining the compost pile with nothing but bones left in the dust. 

The cacophony of screeches caused by the pain of the time morph wasn't limited to the animals though. Cries of pain rung through the air as civilians in the nearby vicinity felt their arms and limbs give out due to the sheer force of time. 

Vanya looked to her right and saw Klaus had gone ghost white. People were dying. Everything was dying. Caught in a temporal cycle of sped up time.

She looked down at her own hands. The blue veins had become prominent and the skin sagged. Allison and Klaus' hair was already stark white. Diego's normally fluid movements had become jerky and Luther's domineering physique hunched with age. 

This was bad. 

Another crackle of power left behind the smell of ozone and reality around them flickered as if transitioning through eras. The ground beneath switched from concrete to cobblestones to dirt to field within an instance. 

A vortex opened up in the sky and Vanya watched mesmerized at the images that flickered through it.

The Sparrow Academy, the battle with the Commission, the 60s, the meeting with Reginald, Pogo, the moment before they time traveled from 2019, Harold Jenkins, Five blowing up a room filled with briefcases, Dad's death, Allison's divorce, Vanya's book, their siblings moving out of the house one by one, Ben's death, the day Five ran away, their thirteenth birthday, seven strollers in front of the mansion. 

Then the illusions sped up. 

20th Century. Kennedy, Vietnam, World War II and then World War I.

19th Century. The Civil War, the Declaration of Independence.

18th Century. The Industrial Revolution.

17th Century- 

"HE'S TURNING BACK TIME!" Diego shouted in panic. The flickering around them made sense now. All of time was occurring simultaneously. It was no longer linear. 

"Is that really such a bad thing?" Klaus said, a half-hearted joke covering his fear. "I, personally, don't mind not being born at all." 

"How far can he even go back?" Allison asked. Her voice was an octave higher than usual and her eyes fearfully shifted between Five and their surroundings 

It was silent for a moment then: "The Big Bang," Luther whispered horrified. 

"But that's before anything ever existed!"

"Exactly!" Luther replied. "And if we go back then it means nothing will ever exist. We'll be lost in a pocket of space time forever."

"Quite the unconventional way to cause an apocalypse," Klaus said nervously. "But when has our dear old Fivey been conventional."

“We need to get to him! Fast!” Diego shouted.

They all got in position to attack and Vanya felt a churning in her gut that this wasn’t right. She didn’t have time to ponder why though because time was literally running out. They had a few minutes at most before Five got to the point of no return. Before they could make a move, the Sparrows appeared. Vanya felt a hot spike of fury fill her _._

 _‘So the cowards appeared,’_ her thoughts whispered. _‘After getting him to this point they still have no mercy.’_

They made to attack Five who had no problem incapacitating them. 

Vanya watched in horror yet sardonic pleasure as Five trapped them each in a pocket of slowed down time. He didn’t even flinch, as if he was expecting the attack, or more scarily: he didn’t even realize they were there. By the time the Sparrows fought their way through, their energy was exhausted and Five's smile was feral as they made their retreat. The whole battle couldn’t have taken more than five minutes. Five against Seven.

They took cover behind a chunk of concrete a few feet away from the Hargreeves and Vanya couldn't fault Diego when he snarled at them. 

"If it isn't the birdbrains who are the cause of all of this. What, taking our brother away wasn't enough for you? You had to make him cause the apocalypse and now you're going to kill him too?" 

The Sparrows looked at them and, despite their exhausted appearances, let out a chorus of mocking laughs. It grated on Vanya’s ears and she didn’t try too hard to stop the surge that flew threw her fingers. It must have had some affect because the Sparrows stopped laughing although their mocking expressions remained unchanged. 

"Is that really what you think?" The one with the hoodie asked. Her face was hidden beneath her hood but the sharp glint of her teeth was visible. 

"Not us... who caused... this," their Number Four, Alphonso, hacked out through labored breaths. "Can't say the same about you though."

Then the Sparrow's Number Five stepped forward. She looked at Vanya and her siblings with her lip curled in disdain and disgust. She was so different than their Five. Their Five who was currently causing the world to end. Vanya’s resentment towards her cut off as she spoke.

"At least I had a reason to stay with my _family_. At least I had a family who love me. I envied him at first, how easily he seemed to have run away from you all but even I'm better off. He wasted so much trying to save you _selfish_ , lost causes. It would have been better if he hadn't. Pity his heart isn't like yours. His love is wasted on you."

"N-no!" Allison yelled. Her voice held fury but stuttered with doubt. "We love him. He's our brother!" 

"Oh honey," Her counterpart (Fei? Vanya thought she remembered her name as Fei) mocked. Her eyes held both pity and amusement. "We may both confuddle others but at least I've never done it to myself."

Allison was rendered mute.

Then Ben stepped forward and the ache in Vanya’s chest increased tenfold. Vanya wanted her Ben. Her brother. She wished he'd stop this imposter family's accusations. She wished he’d help Five the way he’d helped her.

This Ben wasn’t her Ben. His words ripped the cruelest of all. 

"Look at you all. _Pathetic._ ” He laughed then. “No wonder I died with you as my team. Who could live when you're all so _selfish_. All at your own tables with your own pity parties no one attends."

Vanya was taken back to the courtyard on the day Reginald cruelly blamed her siblings for her brother’s death. They all looked ill. Klaus looked like he'd been punched in the gut and Vanya knew he felt guilty about keeping Ben to himself after death. This wasn’t their Ben. Their Ben would _never_ blame his siblings for what happened and this Ben had gone too far. Vanya had had enough. She let the fury take over and her power sparked through finger tips, ready to blast the Sparrows away, back to Five’s domain of terror where she knew they wouldn’t survive a second blast, but before it could reach the Sparrows that _goddamn cube_ floated in front of her face and Vanya was gone. 

\---

_Number Seven was 8 years old. Father had refused to allow her to even enter the training room today and every day this week. It was lonely without her siblings._

_A crack beside her alerted her to her brother's presence. He’d snuck out to check on her._

_"Are you okay, Seven?" he asked kindly. He only ever used that tone with her._

_"I’m lonely," she admitted with a sniffle._

_"Do you want me to ask Dad to let you train with us?"_

_Seven looked up fearfully. Five had already gotten into trouble this morning for distracting their father so he couldn't experiment on Number Six and twice before this week for speaking out of turn; Two's stutter was having a bad week and Reginald got impatient. Five had also gotten a cold for going into the mausoleum at night to keep Four company. Their father hadn’t found out yet but every night was a close risk. He had even risked getting caught by their father by going out to get Number Three's favorite hot chocolate when she'd lost her voice the previous week because of her training._

_"You'll get in trouble," She worried. Dad hated it if any of her siblings bothered to pay attention to her especially during training._

_Seven didn't want to get Five in more trouble than he was already in._

_He did it anyway._

_\---_

_Five was muttering furiously as he wrote equations on his walls. They were 13 and Reginald had once again refused to let him time-travel. Vanya was fidgeting on the bed, keeping him company and listening to his bursts of angry ramblings._

_"Five, why do you think I don't have powers?" Vanya blurted out. She didn’t know where the question had come from. She hadn’t meant to voice it out loud._

_Five stopped short. It was a question he'd pondered on a lot as well and always came up blank. If 43 children were born at the exact same time on the exact same day under the exact same circumstances and had powers, then it made no sense for one child to be an anomaly. The fact that 43 children were even born in that way was already one._

_"I really don't know, Van," Five admitted honestly._

_Vanya tried not to let her disappointment show. She already knew even her smartest brother didn't know the answer, how could he if even their father didn’t know, but it still hurt nonetheless. For a few moments it was silent except for Five's chalk hitting and scraping against the wall as he wrote._

_"If you think you have powers though, I believe you," Five said thoughtfully. Vanya thought his statement made no sense since she very much knew she was normal. Her noise of disapproval must have indicated as such cuz Five immediately plopped down next to her._

_"If you think you have powers, then you do have powers." He said seriously. "You'd probably know better than anyone. So even if we can't see them…"_

_He trailed off and then stood up and started writing again. Vanya almost cried. For Five to believe something without empirical evidence was unheard of, but he trusted her enough to believe her even though she knew she didn't have powers._

_He trusted her enough to believe in her even when she couldn't believe in herself._

_"I'll always believe in you too, Five."_

_\---_

_"But you didn't, did you?_ " A cold voice hissed. " _He needed you and you only thought of yourself."_

Vanya grew pale as she remembered all the instances she dismissed her brother.

_"Dad always said time travel could mess up your mind."_

_"Maybe you should see someone. I could always give you my therapist's number. She's really good at what she does."_

_"New timeline, New me."_

_“I can’t help you, Five. I don’t even know who I am.”_

_"Why should you get to decide when you're the reason we're stuck here in the first place."_

She broke her promise. He never broke his. 

The other Number One, Marcus, looked down at where she’d fallen as Christopher floated away. Unlike his siblings his eyes held no mockery, just pity, as he looked to their broken family. 

"Too much pressure means even Rome's walls will fall one day. It self-destructs before the enemy can bring it down."

 _And a child shunned by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth._

Vanya knew this better than anyone. In the muddle of her mind, a half-baked thought questioned why and how she was mixing random proverbs together but she ignored it for now. 

She blinked back tears as she looked past her family and the Sparrows at Five who was still in the middle of the din. Her bones creaked as she stood up; a reminder of what Five's power was doing to them all. Even the Sparrows weren't spared; the changes of time washing over them too. 

She knew what she had to do. She knew how Five felt. 

And she didn't need her powers to do it. 

* * *

Five was tired.

So so tired. 

An innocent mistake he'd made as a child of 13 had cost him everything. His home, his sanity, his dreams, his siblings. 45 years of struggle and pain and misery and defeat. 

_(Oh how he wished he'd listened to his father that day, how he wished he'd conceded to Vanya when she shook her head)._

He had the blood of innocents on his hands, his humanity dug out of him with a scalpel in a barter for a way home. Five loathed how much his hands were stained. He preferred when the red on his clothes seeped from his own veins rather than anyone else's. 

_(He couldn't bear anyone else's. He couldn’t. He couldn’t)._

When he'd finally made it home, he told himself he hadn't been expecting a warm welcome back. He hadn't. 

_Didn't you?_ His traitorous heart whispered. _Or is that what you told yourself after you didn't get it?_

His siblings had been almost emotionless as they sat across from him. They'd interrogated him; asking for answers Five knew they'd never understand and yet he answered them anyway. No "how are you?"s. No "are you okay?"s. 

Their faces were blank. No worry. Just curiosity, confusion and apprehension. Vanya had written in her book that Five leaving had led to them all slowly drifting then eventually falling apart. 

_(Then why don't they seem happier to see you?)_

There were no tears cried over his arrival and no hugs exchanged and Five buried the hurt with his goal to prevent the apocalypse. There would be time for reunions after. Right?

_The Apocalypse…_

He'd often questioned if going back was worth it. If saving his family was worth it. Would they even want to be saved?

He'd never tell anyone but he almost ended it once.

\---

_He'd been somewhere in his 20s. Time was a blur with nothing to keep track of it. He'd wondered why going back even mattered. His siblings were all at rest. He'd dug their graves himself. Would it matter if he dropped down too? Reunite with them in the afterlife or whatever. It's not like they were in any pain. They were six feet under rubble. Dying seemed the faster way to get to them._

_That day was the first time he had dropped the handle of the creaking wagon with no intention of picking it up again. He almost said goodbye to Delores before admitting to himself that she was just a delusion of his mind. He gave into his aching feet and malnourished limbs and collapsed. A sandstorm was coming; he could tell by the way the wind was bowling. If he fell asleep before it, maybe he'd wake up to something that wasn't a barren, broken landscape. Maybe he'd wake up to nothing at all. He'd even smiled as he'd lowered the makeshift mask he'd made of his scarf not caring about the ash and dust entering his lungs._

_When he'd opened his eyes, the sandstorm was above him. He'd fallen into a ditch and the Rocky terrain had somehow shielded him. His wagon had fallen across from him, possibly pushed in by the wind. Delores stared at him reproachfully from where she was lying upside-down. Even the blood loss hadn’t been enough to kill him._

_Five had sobbed._

\---

Stopping the first apocalypse had been a bust but he'd stranded his siblings across time. When he'd found them again, none of them wanted to help, too focused on their newfound lives in the 60s. Their easy dismissal of him left a bitter taste in his mouth and their blame on his messy control of his powers was even worse. They saw him and his warning of the apocalypse as a nuisance. 

_(If they cared so much then why did they have no problem living without him?_ _How was it that his appearance only ever aggravated them?)_

They all had their own lives, their own agendas. They were content even if they were out of their own time. Five’s desire to get them home meant nothing to them.

When he met Reginald again for the first time in over 40 years, Five questioned how right he had truly been all those years ago. His memory of why he'd been so confident as a teen was dulled. For the first time in his life, he felt guilty towards the man who called himself his father. He hadn’t been an easy child had he? Was his insolence ever justified even if Reginald had messed them up? 

Maybe if he had listened? Maybe if he hadn't thought so much of himself. 

_(Maybe the suffering of an arrogant thirteen-year-old was deserved_.)

No matter, Five figured out how to get them home. Sure, he'd seen his siblings die for the third time before they made it but all things considered, Five was getting pretty used to seeing the people he loved die.

 _(my fault, my fault, my fault)_

Except it wasn't their timeline or their home either. A bunch of other kids had taken their place and his siblings had turned on him. Claire didn't exist. Their Ben was gone. They had no home. They had nowhere to go and they were out of their own time. 

His siblings had told him as much battering him with blame and Five had no way to answer. Allison’s sobs as she realized Claire didn’t exist echoed in his ears and Klaus’ haunted look at the way the new Ben had treated them wouldn’t leave him alone. Mom hadn’t recognized Diego either, proving once and for all, they didn’t cross paths with Reginald as children. No, he’d chosen others to replace them.

 _(My Fault, My Fault, My Fault)_

Five needed to fix this. Needed to get them home. When Reginald offered him a place at his new academy, he'd accepted. He didn’t recognize himself in the new uniform and even accepting the deal felt like betrayal but he masked it with his usual indifference. He needed info on the Sparrows. He needed to know what had changed the timeline. 

He didn't think about how Reginald's adoption of the Sparrows meant that somewhere in the world, his alternate self was probably with his real parents. A version of himself that Reginald had never bought. 

_(Did this timeline's version of him have siblings who actually loved him? Did he have people who'd worry if he made the mistake of running headfirst into an apocalypse? Did he have people who would care about how much he was doing to keep them safe?)_

He allowed Reginald to experiment on him again even though it made his skin crawl and nausea to well up. He allowed himself to be trapped in the mansion he’d loathed but missed for the majority of his life. He submitted to the man who made him feel 13 again even though he was 58. He did it for his family. 

_(Five was tired)_

_(So tired)_

His family hated him. The mess they were in was his fault. If only he was more intuitive. If only he had figured out Vanya was the bomb the first time. If only he hadn't overshot when he sent his family to the past and forced the timeline to change. If only he wasn't a failure. If only he had more time. 

_(MY FAULT, MY FAULT, MY FAULT)_

Oh how little he had of it. He never had time. Nearly 60 years of it still wasn't enough. But if he could solve everything, maybe he could even give in to the ever-present desire to rest and rest and rest forever. No more counting minutes. 

_(No more counting minutes til he could leave Reginald and the oppressive Academy._

_No more counting minutes til he would be allowed to time travel._

_No more counting minutes til he was free of the apocalypse._

_No more counting minutes til he was free of the Commission._

_No more counting minutes til he could see his family again._

_No more counting minutes til the world was safe._

_No more counting minutes til he could rest forever.)_

His only consolation was that Vanya was safe. She was unhappy and betrayed but she was safe. She wouldn't cause an apocalypse and that was a relief. Her fuse wasn't lit and although that was a small consolation, Five could work with that. He could. He _would_. He'd change everything back to the way it was supposed to be. Back to before he'd messed up everything. Back to before the apocalypse nonsense started. Because Vanya always caused the apocalypse when she was upset. Maybe she wouldn’t have if he’d never left. Vanya had been the reason he’d spent his life in hell but he couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. He’d left her first. Even if she didn’t need him to do more than keep her emotions in check.

_(None of his family needed him)_

In his hysteria, he didn't recognize as time flew past him, long past the moment he wanted to prevent. He didn't see space curl into magnetic whirlpools and multiple realities branch back into the same root. He didn't even see his siblings in front of him, trying to get his attention, weakened by his powers. 

He didn't notice his own breaking point; that in his effort to fix everything, he was the cause of it this time.

He didn’t see what the world was becoming. Didn’t feel the power flowing through him, bending space and time to his will.

What he did recognize was his sister's warm embrace. One he hadn't felt in 43 years, but had missed every single day. And what he did see was the tears on her face as she wiped his away. 

"Five… Hey, hey… Five. Can you hear me?" She whispered. Her voice was as gentle and soothing as it had always been as she held onto his shoulders firmly but not in a way that hurt. 

"Vanya…" He mumbled back.

"You're alright, Five. I've got you. You can stop now."

"You're okay?" Five asked and Vanya had to swallow the lump in her throat because even in distress her brother was thinking only of her. He only ever thought of his family, never of himself. How had none of them noticed this? How could they have blamed him for everything?

"I'm fine, Five."

A shadow of relief crossed Five's face. It’s what he’d needed to hear and a half smile formed before it dropped. His eyes were still electric blue. He seemed to become more aware of his surroundings but not entirely. Vanya knew how that felt.

"It's happening again isn't it? The apocalypse?" Five sounded so _tired_ and Vanya almost cried at the exhaustion in his voice and the tears that filled his eyes. Vanya had _never_ seen Five cry.

"Yes. But you can stop it, Five. I _know_ you can." She gripped his hands that were fisted up by his sides, the source of all the warped energy, (ignoring the sudden pain that shot through her as if it was trying to rip her cells apart and regrow them anew) as if trying to show him it was that simple to make it stop, to cease the apocalypse. 

And to Vanya's horror, Five's tears spilled over and his mouth twisted into a trembling smile barely containing his sobs. 

"I can't. I tried. I'm a failure. I couldn't save you. I couldn't stop it. I _can't_ stop it."

Vanya looked behind her to see her siblings approaching, gearing up to attack at a moments notice but she shook her head to make sure they knew to keep their distance. She knew what she was doing. She'd been on the other side of the coin twice already. This situation didn’t need aggression.

"Yes, you _can_. You've stopped it before." Her voice was firm as she tried not to cry, herself. 

"I messed up everything. I always do."

"No! No you don't, Five."

"I missed you," Five whispered. The power still surged from his hands but the tendrils weakened slightly. "I thought you all did too."

A tremor laced Vanya's voice as she spoke next but she held firm. 

"We did, Five. O-of course we missed you so much. _I-I_ missed you so much. I'm sorry we didn't show it. _I'm sorry_."

"I always mess it up. I should have stayed there." Five's voice trembled. "In the apocalypse. You'd all be happier."

Vanya felt the echo of her own words in the timeline past. _(I'm a monster. I can't control it)._

"We wouldn't have. You saved me. You came back after 45 years and _you saved me_." Vanya looked Five directly in the eye. She wasn't sure if he could see her but he could hear her. That was enough. And she felt her eyes tear harder as she remembered the words her Ben said to her before he died for the second time. "Let me help you. You're _my brother_. You're not supposed to do this by yourself. You're not alone in the apocalypse anymore, Five."

Five's tears only fell faster and Vanya hugged him. It's what Ben had wanted in his last moments. It's what Vanya had wanted too even though Ben had asked first. Vanya belatedly realized that Five hadn't had a hug in much longer than Ben. Even though he'd been alive the whole time. 

And it seemed that's all he really needed because Five crumpled against her and sobbed. The power surge stopped completely and the time vortexes closed and, finally, Vanya allowed herself to cry too. 

She mumbled apologies to rival Five's who still believed it was his fault, who was crying so hard she wondered if he could even breathe. And then Klaus was there with his arms around them both, then Allison, then Diego and then Luther. They were all crying. 

Because at the end of the day, Vanya wasn't the bomb. All of them were. It just so happened Vanya was the most volatile the first time around. And it just so happened that Five was just as volatile as her but too caught up in stopping the inevitable to acknowledge it. 

So the Hargreeves held their oldest brother in his tiny body that still carried the remnants of the years he'd spent malnourished and weak in literal hell. Their little brother who'd sacrificed so much in return for so little and still got nothing in return. And maybe it was too little, too late, as always seemed to be the case with them. But it was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought about how Five would cause an apocalypse if he had to and someone in the notes also suggested it but I figured that since Five can turn back time, he can likely turn it forward too. As an explanation, if anyone is still confused, Five used Time Manipulation to turn time forward for everything living and standing causing it to be destroyed while simultaneously turning time backwards towards the Big Bang. The Sparrows and Hargreeves felt the affects slower because they're also super-powered but that doesn't mean Five's powers doesn't affect them at all. Also due to the manipulation of Space, the magnetic field of the Earth became distorted as well causing everything to be sucked into vortexes sort of like in the beginning of S1 when he arrived.
> 
> Also, I found this video yesterday after I had finished writing the fic which really illustrated a lot of the parallels I had in mind regarding Five and Vanya. The voice-overs are chilling and amazing so I highly recommend checking it out.
> 
> [five & vanya || i was alone.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5hUoQIksw)
> 
> Come follow me on tumblr @OceanSpray5. Also PLEASE leave a review or constructive criticism if you have any. It's a really good motivator and every writer loves getting feedback on their fics. This my first TUA fic so I'd love to hear back.


End file.
